How to draw cat fur

Here l will take you through the steps l go through to draw the fur on this short haired cat.

This is the very first layer. It may look scribbly, but actually all the lines are quite carefully drawn. This layer is important because it sets up all the following layers. If you get the fur wrong at this stage it is hard to correct. The most important thing is to get all the little strokes the right size and in the right direction. Take your lightest colors. I have begun here with Caran D'Ache Luminance in Buff Titanium and Brown Ochre 10% and Prismacolor Premiere in Gingeroot. I have marked out the lightest area around the eye and the bridge of the nose. I use tiny ndividual strokes, the size of the real cats fur. If you use longer strokes the cat will look like a fluffy cat and not a short haired one. At this point you need to be really careful to look at all the different directions the cat's fur grows in. If you get the direction of the fur wrong, the whole thing will look odd when you have finished.

Here in the second photo l have started to bring in the lightest shades of the darker fur. I begin again with a few hairs worked in the Caran D'Ache Luminance Brown Ochre 10%. I bring in Caran D'Ache Pablos in Ochre, Brownish Beige, Vandyke Brown and Brown Ochre, Luminance in the Sepia 10% and Prismacolor Beige Sienna. I am looking carefully at my reference photo at this point looking for all the colors that l can see. When you train yourself to really look, you will see so many. All these colors add real life to the fur as the layers progress. All these colours are added using the same tiny strokes and again always being careful to keep the direction correct.

In the third photo you will see that l have begun working the ear and the nose. These are very basic but l need them there to be able to work the fur around those areas naturally. If l try to complete all the fur l began and then add the ear and nose it is hard to blend the two parts without an obvious join. Also having these areas roughly marked helps me to see how dark l need to go on the fur l am working. I will continually add to this fur right up until the very last minute of working on it. For this layer l add Faber Castell Polychromos in Nougat, Raw Umber and Burnt Ochre and Pablo Bistre. I am starting to add a few darker hairs to the light fur over the bridge of the nose and darkening up the darker fur areas.

In the fourth photo you can see that the fur is beginning to look more life like and less like a lot of tiny drawn lines, although there is still a long way to go. I keep layering with the same colors as above but l have also added in some Pablo Charcoal Grey to the darkest areas and Faber Castell Caput Mortem over the ginger nose fur and around the eyes.

Here in the fifth photo you will see l have begun the first light layers of other fur on the face. This is so that l can judge how much darker l need to go with the fur l have already been working. I now start adding in a lot of darker colors. I add Prismacolor Beige Sienna to the lightest areas, Pablo Umber, Cream (to pick out some lighter hairs), and Cinnamon, Caran D'Ache Luminance Burnt Sienna 10% and Faber Castell Polychromos in Red Violet, Caput Motem Violet.

Here in the final photo l have built up the colors a bit more using various colours already used.